Protected: Best of Blog: Zoey moves forward-1st day of kindergarten to end of middle school
They’re back!
The hot flashes, that is. Well, they didn’t really go away entirely but they had settled down to a dull roar of 2-3 a day instead of 12-15 a day.
I got my three month Lupron shot last Thursday. This usually causes a few days of increased hot flashes.
It’s still not up to the 12-15/day rate, and for this I am grateful.
I’m trying extra hard not to think about the possibility of going through menopause all over again after I come off of Lupron in a couple of years. Not to mention the prospect of having cycles again! Don’t take away one of the few bonuses of breast cancer treatment!
I know, inconvenience is the kind of problem to have. But I’m going to let myself whine about this just a little bit.
Okay, I’m done whining. I feel better now. I’m going to go make a meatloaf, complete with gluten free bread crumbs.
I have a definite sense of style. When I was a young girl, most of my clothes were used, hand-me-downs from my brothers or from the local used clothing store. Now it is kind of cool to wear second hand clothes. Back then, it was definitely not cool to do so. And I had interesting taste when I was younger, to put it mildly. When I was 10, I saw these shoes at the second hand store that I really wanted. They were flat and brightly colored. I know that green was one of the colors and there was another one, too. I was happily wearing them at school when one of the older kids recognized what they were. “Hey, she’s wearing bowling shoes!” And upon seeing the $1.49 price marked on the sole in grease pencil, “And they’re used!”
As I got older, my style got more sophisticated. As an adult, I dress pretty nicely for work. I am embarrassed to admit how much I like to shop for dresses and shoes. I hate “going shopping” though and buy nearly all of my clothes online at discount sites.
When I’m not at the office, however, I am much more about “function” than “form.” This is particularly true of the outfit I wear for my daily 3 mile long walks. And as a resident of Seattle, I have nearly every inch of me covered in Gore-Tex. My neighbor, Paula, who works for the famous outdoor recreation outfitters, REI, makes fun of my outfit. I don’t know, I think it is cat walk ready. Maybe I’ll get hired to do a Cabela’s ad to be featured in Field and Stream.
For the breast cancer survivor on the go. The latest in waterproof walking attire, complete with hot flash friendly layering.
I had my first follow-up mammogram this morning. Lefty looked good. Righty got to opt out because it is no longer filled with breast tissue.
I wasn’t sure how much this visit would stress me out but it was fine. And I’m not sure if I was imagining it but the compression on lefty seemed awfully tight. Maybe once you’ve had breast cancer, they turn the screws extra tight. But it was still tolerable and obviously, they were squeezes for a good cause!
Protected: Best of Blog: One is the Loneliest Number…
Yes, I was looking at swimsuits on the Land’s End website today. I have a complicated history with swimsuits. I have avoided wearing them for the most part. Additionally, swimming bothers my eczema. But my skin is doing much better on this wheat free diet and I have dreams of getting a hot tub in the back yard. By summer, I will have a permanent right breast, too, instead of my empanada-shaped temporary one. Woo hoo!
I know that breast cancer changes a lot of women’s view of their own body. We tend to dwell on the negative aspects of loss. They are real, don’t get me wrong. I have to say, though that I like my new outlook on my belly fat (hey, you are going to be transplanted north in 6 weeks) and the fact that I am kind of looking forward to swim suit season, even though I am unlikely to have a backyard hot tub or go to the tropics any time soon.
It’s just good to be looking forward to another season with all of my surgeries behind me. And I do feel better in my body. I eat well, I exercise, I meditate, and I see all of my wonderful care providers. The fact that I have not been reduced to a pile of tear-soaked rubble makes me feel powerful and strong from the inside out.
So yesterday was my day of hapless mess-ups and feeling bad about how disorganized I feel. Right after I posted, “Chaos“, I had more. I realized that I’d forgotten about another patient appointment that I’d neglected to cancel for my sick day. Luckily, I realized this fact 45 minutes before the actual appointment time. I jumped into the car wearing jeans and no make up and got to the appointment about 30 minutes early to regroup. At least I had showered that day and was wearing clean clothes, which had not been true the prior two days since I was convalescing with my cold.
Do you know how I forgot these two appointments? Remember when I went all Golem after losing my my schedule for a single day because my smartphone got wet? But in that day, I scheduled several appointments, which I had to record elsewhere while my phone was drying out on its little bed of rice. When my phone came back to life, I know I went through my notes to make sure that all of the new appointments were recorded on my now alive phone. Since checking this again, I discovered that I did update my schedule correctly every day between 1/14 and 3/11 (the date of my surgery) except for one date. Yes, that date would be 1/14, the day I tried to take off as a sick day.
I’ve decided that all cancer patients deserve a personal assistant to help them maintain their schedules, especially if they are the schedule keepers at home and at work.
As you know, I was pretty bummed and overwhelmed yesterday. But I rallied. Tomorrow is another day. This morning, two families showed up to see me at 9:30 am! My schedule indicated that one family had arrived 24 hours early for their appointment. I felt terrible. I figured it was my fault since I have been so discombobulated. I apologized. Fortunately, the mom knows about my health status so she didn’t yell at me or anything. I was very apologetic. They are coming back tomorrow.
I knew that the appointment had been scheduled by email. I wanted to see if I had made the error, in which case I would discount my fees for this family.
To my astonishment, I saw that I had sent not one but two emails saying that the appointment was for tomorrow and I also confirmed that this was the date the mom had requested for the appointment.
Phew! It is a little lame to be so happy about this. But I will take whatever slice of sanity I can get.
Protected: Chaos
Every other Thursday, I have a new little routine of doing a couple of hours of my business paperwork at the local coffee shop, Bird on a Wire. I was there two days ago. The baristas were both sick though not coughing on things. They were just congested. However, this should have been enough of a hint for me to high tail it out of there. (I am usually the Howard Hughes of avoiding illnesses. As a child psychologist with a private business, if I can’t work, no one can cover for me and plus, I don’t get paid.)
To the left of me, seated about 7 feet away was a regular customer. She is there every time I go to the coffee shop in the morning. I can tell the community at the coffee shop means a lot to her. Now she was coughing up a storm and exclaiming, “I just got this cough yesterday. I think I have a cold.”
This is when I was hijacked by hubris. I thought something along the lines of “I am pumped full of vitamins and good food. I walk three miles a day. I am strong. I a wonder Wonder Woman!”
So I stayed in the coffee shop.
This morning I woke up with a headache and a cough.
Fortunately, my hubris was not as Icaris proportions and I’ll live to learn from this experience, congestion and all.
When I am particularly stressed, I can have anxiety dreams. One theme is “bad guys chasing me.” Those are pretty darned easy to interpret, even for a cognitive-behavioral therapist who is not into dream analysis. Safety fears are old hat and very common.
Another theme is anxiety about professional competence. This plays out in two possible scenarios (a) I find myself back in high school because I really didn’t graduate (but I still have a Ph.D.) or (b) I find myself in college because I really didn’t graduate (but I still have a Ph.D.) These dreams often end with my saying to myself, “Why am I worried about this? I have my Ph.D. and psychology license, which allows me to work.” Then I feel much better. Then it magically turns out that I was mistaken about not having graduated from high school or college. See, I even do cognitive therapy with myself in my dreams.
Since my breast cancer diagnosis, I’ve encountered a third theme of anxiety dream. In these dreams, I find that I no longer live in my home but have moved somewhere else. It’s sudden and I’m not on board with the decision but it is too late. Last night I had the same dream. We moved to a pretty fancy house with two swimming pools. (In other dreams, there’s often a hot tub and in another we moved to a house on a river.) At one point the house changed so that it was part of a shopping mall. I was walking around the new house, orienting myself to it and I ended up in the shopping mall. I quickly got lost and ended up out of the mall and wandering around a city that was not familiar to me. I couldn’t get a cab or bus to take me home because I hadn’t yet memorized my new address. When I looked for my phone to call home, I kept finding phones in my purse but none of them worked. At one point, it started snowing and I was walking around with no coat. If this dream had a resolution, I don’t remember it.
I know where I am. I know where I live. I’m not going any where.
My Eyes Are Up Here 